An Unexpected Snow
by girl in the glen
Summary: A cabin, some snow and a chance encounter.


I looked out the window into a frozen landscape, shivered at the feel of the cold glass beneath my fingers. My little vacation hadn't gone as planned; the weather had produced an unexpected storm and now I was ... stuck. Here, in this cabin, all alone instead of with George.

George, my trusty and reliable boyfriend of two years who was now at the bottom of the mountain and unable to get past the frozen deadlock that was the road here. I would just have to weather this little glich ... Oh, pun definitely intended. I have no one else to amuse me.

Maybe this wasn't all bad, I mean it did give me time to think about things. Things like George. The two years with him had been ... hmmm... okay. As boyfriends went, George was stalwart and kind, courteous ... not exactly the thrilling romance I had envisioned for myself. He was handsome, I had to admit it, and in my rather shallow way it was had first attracted me to him. Thinking back on that first encounter, I could see now that it had never been enough, but he was a good catch and I was a career girl in New York City and in need of someone to help guide me through the turbulent sixties.

I saw something in the haze of white that was the view from my icy window. It looked like ... Suddenly my heart was gripped with something like alarm. There was a man out there, stumbling towards my cabin. I couldn't make out very much about him, he seemed to be the same color as the snow covered ground, and he was struggling to keep moving. I hesitated and then, with an abandon that would later shock and amaze me, I opened the door and headed into the wintry scene. As my foot touched the wooden planks of the small porch he looked up, a pleading expression in vivid blue eyes that seemed to call to me in a visceral fashion that literally made my heart leap.

I was off the porch and into the snow, crunching as I ran towards the man. He faltered and fell, then raised himself up again in an attempt to get to his feet.

"Hey, are you hurt? You look..." Oh God, there was blood on his hands, I could see that now. He was almost dead weight as I helped him up, catching his arm around my shoulder as I guided him into the warmth of the cabin. My heart was racing even more than my addled brain as I tried to fathom what I was doing bringing in this stranger to what had been a safe little haven from the storm.

"Here, sit here... Oh God, what happened to you?" Those blue eyes looked at me then and every doubt about him melted away. No one could look like this and be a bad guy, it just wasn't possible. Blond hair that was longish and wild against nearly perfect features made me feel weak in the knees. He was wounded and bleeding, and I was having a flash of lust that would have made my mother reach for her rosary beads.

"You seem to have saved me, I owe you my life." An accent unlike anything I had encountered came from beneath those perfect lips. His voice was deep and penetrating, much like the look in his eyes. I took a breath and let it escape, slowly.

"What happened? Are you ...?' What was I about to ask, and did I really want to know?

"Do you need a doctor? Because I don't think we can get out of here."

He shook his head, wincing a little as he did so.

"No, it really is just a flesh wound. The cold is what would have killed me." He said that and smiled, a small smile that looked almost shy. I was very glad that George hadn't made it up the mountain when I saw that smile.

"My name is Linda, I came up here for a little vacation and got snowed in. I have food though, and plenty of it. Someone else was supposed to join me, so... I don't know if there are any medical supplies though. What do I need to do ... ?" He shook his head again.

"No, I shall tend to my injuries. It would be too much to ask of you. Perhaps just some alcohol, or soap... " It was not a question, and I helped him to stand and led him into the little bathroom. Opening the mirrored cabinet revealed supplies adequate for the job, and so he thanked me and indicated that I should leave him alone. Since he seemed to have regained his equilibrium and, obviously wanted to do the job himself, I relented and backed out into the hallway. He closed the door, leaving me slightly breathless and more than a little curious.

I decided to put some lunch together. He had to be hungry, and I should have been, but the butterflies in my stomach made food less important that satisfying my need to make contact with the mysterious man in my bathroom. In less time than I would have thought necessary to clean up, he appeared in front of me holding his bloody shirt in one hand and an apologetic look on his face.

"I am embarrassed to have to ask, but would you happen to have something I might put on in place of ...' He gestured to the discarded shirt... "this?"

In a stroke of something like good luck, I had purchased a new sweater for George to wear up here. Cashmere, pale blue... It seemed made for this man, and I was nearly giddy at having such a brilliant solution to his bare chest. A series of bandages ran across his ribcage, alerting me to the source of the blood. Perhaps it hadn't been as bad as I first thought, but the idea of running my fingers across the injured flesh was nearly irresistible.

What was wrong with me? I didn't know this man from Adam, George was sitting at the bottom of this hill thinking of me all alone up here. Only I wasn't alone, and this man wasn't George.

"I do have something, hold on..." I nearly skipped into the bedroom to retrieve the soft blue garment, anxious to see how it looked on this blond adonis who had spilled into my life with all the drama of a James Bond movie.

"Say, I don't know your name. I won't ask how you ended up here... but a name would be nice." I yelled it from the end of the hall, not quite courageous enough to ask him face to face. As I returned with the sweater in hand it was impossible to not take note of his slender physique, the signs of several other scars on his back. As I neared him something bold captured my hand and I ran my curious fingers across the bare skin, and he let me do it with that sly smile on his face.

"Illya. My name is Illya Kuryakin." Russian? Oh dear, what was going on?

"Are you a ... spy? Should I be worried about the FBI showing up, or ...?" Again, the shake of his head, and blond hair falling forward as if to reassure me that no one who looked like this could be bad. I was stuck on that rationalization.

"No, that is I work for a law enforcement organization, but I am not a Soviet spy. I am Russian, but the organization I work for is multi-national. I was caught in a mission that went ... hmm... badly, I suppose. I lost contact with my partner and ended up dumped from a speeding car with just this minor damage." He indicated the bandages and I handed him the sweater, wishing for all the world that he wouldn't put it on.

"Oh, I see... " Although I didn't, not really. He wasn't a spy, but he was something like a cop...

"I have lunch ready, if you're hungry." He nodded this time, and if his eyes could have lit up a little more, then food seems to have been a trigger for that. We sat down and I ladled some soup into his bowl and set out a platter of sandwiches. For a small man he certainly had a healthy appetite. I couldn't help but wonder if that applied to anything else.

Lunch was a success and soon after I noticed that he seemed a little sleepy. No wonder, wounded, thrown from a car and caught in a snow storm.

"Would you like to lie down, take a nap? You can use the bedroom if you like. I think we're going to be here for a while, the snow isn't letting up at all." I hoped it would snow long enough to let me indulge myself in this delicious encounter. My imagination was running wild at this point, and in spite of his polite demeanor, I sensed something beneath the surface of his cool facade, something I wanted to explore.

"Thank you, I do feel a bit fatigued. You're being very kind, and brave. I could have been something other than what I am, which is to say you took a risk." He looked so good in that blue cashmere, it literally pained me to think about letting him slip away for even a few hours. I led him down the hall and into the bedroom. A plump quilted coverlet was topped by a jumble of pillows. I pulled the quilt back and motioned for him to get in.

"You need to get some real rest. I can't imagine that what you've been through hasn't taken some sort of toll on your body, so..."

And that's when it happened. He touched my arm in a gesture that was so gentle, so evocative of a tenderness that was suffused with desire. I thought my knees would give out so I latched onto his arm and held on for dear life. Illya drew me into an embrace that would have suffocated me had I not had his mouth on mine to provide adequate oxygen between us.

I seem to remember removing that beautiful sweater I had so recently given to him even as he ran those strong hands beneath my own mohair confection. Without really understanding how or when, I found myself entwined with a naked Russian, and me equally unclothed. The coverlet protected us from the cold but not nearly as much as the heat we produced in our lovemaking. He was an artist, and I became the canvas for his every stroke, undulating and colorful as a pallet full of paint.

Something about him was a deep, aching void, and yet he filled me with such intense pleasure that I couldn't imagine anything more fulfilling than this extraordinary encounter. Whatever fueled his ardor was equally balanced by a life that had little in the way of a guarantee that it would happen again. The absolute uncertainty was like an aphrodesiac for both of us.

We fell into a deep sleep, awakening when shadows had fallen over the snow packed earth beyond our little cabin. He was warm, his arm wrapped protectively around me beneath the cheery covers. I didn't want this to end, and if the snow continued to fall then perhaps it wouldn't, at least for a few hours more.


End file.
